We Struck
Hard, And Were Half-Full Of Water In A Moment; Tuba Recovered Himself
As Speedily, Shoved Off The Bow, And Shot The Canoe Into A Still
Shallow Place, To Bale Out The Water.
Here we were given to
understand that it was not the medicine which was at fault; that had
lost none of its virtue; the accident was owing entirely to Tuba
having started without his breakfast.
Need it be said we never let
Tuba go without that meal again?
We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near the
middle of the river and on the lip of the Falls. On reaching that
lip, and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique
character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us.
It is rather a hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in
words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter,
even by a number of views, could but impart a faint impression of the
glorious scene. The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help
to the conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara has been formed by
a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls; and during a
long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad,
deep, and pretty straight trough in front. It goes on wearing back
daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river - the St.
Lawrence - flows. But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack
right across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there
formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the crack are still quite
sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the river rolls.
The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag, or
symptoms of stratification or dislocation. When the mighty rift
occurred, no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed
of the river thus rent asunder, consequently, in coming down the
river to Garden Island, the water suddenly disappears, and we see the
opposite side of the cleft, with grass and trees growing where once
the river ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we
sail. The first crack is, in length, a few yards more than the
breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little
over 1860 yards, but this number we resolved to retain as indicating
the year in which the Fall was for the first time carefully examined.
The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the cleft
across it is nearly east and west. The depth of the rift was
measured by lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a
foot of white cotton cloth were tied. One of us lay with his head
over a projecting crag, and watched the descending calico, till,
after his companions had paid out 310 feet, the weight rested on a
sloping projection, probably 50 feet from the water below, the actual
bottom being still further down.
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